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Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

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Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#191

Post by someperson »

CharlesW wrote: post #182
eyelidlessness wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol they highlighted running Linux in the first announcement of the ISA switch , they see no threat in Linux at all. Their business model would need to change dramatically for that to happen. They’re a hardware company that makes the hardware more attractive with software, service and device integration. Their software restrictions are part of the value proposition, but anyone fully ejecting from that would be on the…

> Linux becoming attractive on their hardware would almost certainly be unsupported, but I seriously doubt it would be undermined. This. Apple doesn't even care about Hackintoshes, which are (theoretically) orders of magnitude more threatening to Apple's business model since they (theoretically) cannibalize Mac sales.

Reminds me of that Bill Gates quote from 1998:

> Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.

I am sure Apple loves that Hackintosh users are in the Apple ecosystem (often developing software for Apple machines), and many will eventually start buying real Apple hardware.

Apple will turn a blind eye to Hackintosh as long as the process stays too difficult to ever cannibalize sales.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#192

Post by macintux »

wmf wrote: post #160
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been mislead if you think the 13" Macbooks run at full boost clock all the time.

It looks like the M1 does run all out all the time (maybe because it never turbos that much to begin with).

When plugged in, perhaps, but when on battery those slower cores are going to get used more.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#193

Post by thekyle »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #137
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #58

I used to run Ubuntu on an Intel macbook back around 2009 or so. In general stuff worked ok but little things like the touchpad was goofy and only basic functionality. webcam had all kinds of problems. Suspend/resume didn't really work. Battery life was terrible. Screen brightness buttons didn't work. So I'm sure it's cool and people will like it but no, I'm not paying $5 month for a crappy computer experience. Good…

That sounds exactly like every Linux-on-desktop experience I've made with any hardware.

I'm not sure what you've tried. If you run Linux on a fairly generic computer (like an Intel NUC) then everything will work out of the box. The more you deviate from the average the more likely things will break.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#194

Post by mdellabitta »

pengaru wrote: post #115
mdellabitta wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on your qualification of who's silicon it is, AMD, Broadcom, Marvell, MediaTek, Nvidia, STMicroelectronics, and Qualcomm do not manufacture chips... Even IBM uses TSMC. That's a lot of the CPU silicon shipping right now. The market has changed, and most CPU vendors don't fab their own chips anymore. The IP is in the chip design. Are you saying TSMC designed the M1?

I'm saying TSMC makes non-Apple chips as well, so Apple isn't enjoying as defensible of a moat when it comes to silicon as their marketing wants you to believe. We are in agreement.

But the point is that manufacturing has become commodified. If TSMC doesn't work out, there are other fab companies to use.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#195

Post by lathiat »

nightski wrote: post #172
freehunter wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>owner would make it incompatible two seconds after they would smell competition We're talking about Apple, right? The company that made an entire software platform called Bootcamp, specifically to enable a competitor's OS to run on their hardware? A company who custom-developed drivers specifically to be compatible with a competitor's OS on their own hardware? You're talking about that Apple? The one who said they w…

Bootcamp is dead on M1. In addition they have taken steps towards further locking down which apps can run on OSX. So he's probably talking about that Apple.

Though “BootCamp” is dead they 100% give you the option to boot unsigned software (unlike iPhone) and it will be possible to boot another OS. However obviously that OS will need drivers and they aren’t available and apple aren’t making them hence no “BootCamp” but it’s totally possible and people will almost certainly start to boot Linux to a certain degree although it seems unlikely we’ll get a proper accelerated GPU driver (I’m sure it will be possible for some basics to work and someone will do that).

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#196

Post by fomine3 »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #190
ddingus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As spiffy as Apple mobile devices are, I never found the locked down environment worth it. Nice hardware, too bad about the OS/App model... This new hardware is awesome! I could care less overall though. Frankly, open computing can be done fast enough to not be a worry. I will stick with all that and see where this new path leads. And my mind is open. Who knows? Maybe it all ends up in a good place. I am quite happy…

The Mac M1 platform is about as open as any other laptop platform. Your points are quite valid for the i-class devices, but there is nothing preventing anyone from installing linux on an M1 Mac once driver support arrives.

There's no OSS driver for Apple Silicon (x86 platforms has OSS driver for Linux maintained by platform company) and boot process is proprietary (x86 UEFI is open spec).

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#197

Post by zozbot234 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #12

If I thought there was a good chance of having the work upstreamed so that a mainline Linux kernel would eventually work on these computers, maybe. In my experience, there are not many ARM SoCs that have mainline support, even some of the Raspberry Pi boards don't, and they're some of the most popular ARM SoCs used for Linux. A lot of these projects get to the stage where a forked kernel will run on the SoC, but then…

> In my experience, there are not many ARM SoCs that have mainline support

You have a point, but the pmOS project among others is working on upstreaming mainline support for these devices. This involves a lot of effort, to be sure but meaningful progress is being made.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#198

Post by fomine3 »

ralph84 wrote: post #111
pengaru wrote: post #51

Most of what makes the M1 interesting is TSMC's 5nm process, why wouldn't we expect similar results from future x86 CPUs on 5nm or smaller. At least AMD is supporting upstream Linux development for GPU support, if you care about Free software and control over your computers, throw your money at companies better aligned with those goals. Don't reward Apple for being assholes. <=5nm AMD Zen SoCs will be fantastic as we…

5nm certainly helped, but what really made M1 is the team Apple has assembled. Apple’s fat margins allowed them to attract and retain the best engineers with top of market total comp. Meanwhile Intel viewed engineering as a cost center to be optimized. So here we are.

Comparing Apple A13 and Snapdragon 865 (both TSMC 7nm) would be good to know how Apple's chip design team does things well.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15603/the-samsung-galaxy-s20-...

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#199

Post by comex »

heavyset_go wrote: post #153
Gaelan wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Mac apps still aren't distributed on the App Store. The Mac App Store almost certainly isn't a big money-maker.

They're turning the screws, the ARM Macs are the first Macs that will not run unsigned binaries. It's already at the point where macOS will treat apps as if they're radioactive if the developer didn't pay the $100 Apple tax before distributing it.

They don’t run unsigned binaries, but they run self-signed binaries (to the same extent that Intel Macs run unsigned binaries) and the linker automatically does the signing. It’s an architectural simplification, not a substantive tightening of the screws.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#200

Post by heavyset_go »

comex wrote: post #199
heavyset_go wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're turning the screws, the ARM Macs are the first Macs that will not run unsigned binaries. It's already at the point where macOS will treat apps as if they're radioactive if the developer didn't pay the $100 Apple tax before distributing it.

They don’t run unsigned binaries, but they run self-signed binaries (to the same extent that Intel Macs run unsigned binaries) and the linker automatically does the signing. It’s an architectural simplification, not a substantive tightening of the screws.

Self-signed applications are treated as if they're radioactive by macOS, too[1].

[1] https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/unsigned.html

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